We have set forth, as far as our poor ability allowed, what joys are prepared in heaven for those who love God; now we shall endeavor to show how great they are by certain outward arguments, and first from a comparison with the joys which God in this life very often bestows upon His enemies and the reprobate. And indeed so great are the joys in riches, in honors, in power, and in pleasures of every kind, which God grants to sinners — His enemies who either blaspheme Him or do not believe in Him — that they are judged happy by almost all men. "They have called the people happy," says the Prophet, "that hath these things" (Ps. 143). Who among the lovers of this world would not envy Solomon, who reigned forty years, abounded in riches and in every delight, and had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines — who nevertheless, in the judgment of St. Augustine, seems to have been reprobate? For so speaks St. Augustine on the Psalms: "This same Solomon was a lover of women, and was rejected by God" (Ps. 126). And in the books of the City of God he says of Solomon what Sallust said of Catiline: "He had a good beginning but an evil end" (Book 17). St. Gregory followed St. Augustine in the second book of the Moralia: "Hence it is," he says, "that Solomon, who received a wisdom in which he was not to persevere, is described as having received it in dreams and by night" (Moralia, Book 2, ch. 2). Nor unlike Solomon in our own time are the kings of the Turks, of the Persians, of the Chinese, and of the Tartars, who possess most ample kingdoms and, enslaved to the pleasures of the flesh, deny nothing to the heart, or the eyes, or the ears, or the gullet, or lust that they in any way desire.
But to pass over those things which belong to few — how great are the joys God bestows in common upon mortals, the greatest part of whom either do not know God, or do not love and fear Him as they ought? Has He not given to all in common the earth with all its riches and delights — its living creatures, fruits, flowers, and metals? Has He not given to all in common the seas, springs, rivers, and lakes, with so many kinds of fish? Has He not given to all in common the sky, adorned with so many stars like the roof of this great house? Has not the Lord Himself, most good and most generous, commanded His sun to rise and His clouds to rain upon the good and the evil? And if He bestows such great joys in this life upon reprobate sinners — His ungrateful slaves, worthy of every punishment — is it not right that He should keep for His friends and children joys beyond all comparison greater? Hear St. Augustine on the Psalms: "To sinners," he says, "who blaspheme Him daily He gives heaven and earth; He gives fountains, fruits, health, children, plenty, abundance. What think you does He reserve for His faithful ones, who gives such things to sinners?" (on Ps. 85). Of St. Fulgentius it is written in his Life (in Surius, vol. 2) that he once saw at Rome the glory of the senate and exclaimed: "How fair must the heavenly city be, if earthly Rome shines so! And if in this world such dignity of honor is given to those who love vanity, what honor and glory will be shown to the blessed who contemplate the truth?" Certainly St. Augustine, a prudent appraiser of things if ever there was one, judged that all earthly joys stand at so great a distance from the heavenly that he did not hesitate to affirm it more desirable to enjoy the heavenly joys for a single day than to enjoy all the joys of the world for many thousands of ages; and these are his words:
"So great is the delight of the eternal light that, even were it not permitted to remain in it longer than the space of a single day, for this alone innumerable years of this life, full of delights and overflowing with temporal goods, would rightly and deservedly be despised; for it was not said in a false or feeble spirit: Better is one day in Thy courts above thousands" (On Free Will, Book 3, last chapter). What shall we say to this? If these things are true — and they are most certainly true — would it not be right that we should at last begin to be wise? Until now we have been wont to say that earthly goods must be despised because they are fleeting, and heavenly goods loved because they are everlasting; now let us hear Augustine, that wisest of Doctors, affirming that even if earthly things were eternal and heavenly things fleeting, heavenly things should still by right judgment be preferred to earthly. Are we not then deaf, and blind, and dull, and foolish, if for the sake of earthly goods — not only vile but also fleeting and brief — we despise the heavenly things which are most precious and everlasting? Do You break, O merciful and compassionate Lord, our deafness; enlighten our blindness; rouse our dullness; heal our madness. For why have You signed upon us the light of Your countenance, O Lord (Ps. 4), if we do not discern things so great and so necessary? And why have You given us the judgment of reason, if we do not see things so evident?